


You Found Me Dressed in Black

by astalavista



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:44:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astalavista/pseuds/astalavista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-canon story set after the tornado has destroyed Arcadia Bay. Max and Chloe struggle with the consequences of Max's actions, and the road to healing broken hearts might be longer than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breathe Me

**Author's Note:**

> It's been four years since I wrote anything, and I thought I was done with writing fanfic. Along comes Life is Strange, and those two crazy kids Max and Chloe that I am crazy about. English is not my first language, but I'll do my best. Reviews are more than welcome. I am currently estimating 3-4 chapters until I am done telling this story. Thanks for reading!
> 
> The title of the story is based on Sia's 'Dressed in Black'. First chapter is based on Sia's 'Breathe Me'. Yeah, so I like Sia.
> 
> A big thanks to my lovely wife for helping me with edits, and a big shoutout to the_diversionist for being awesome and unceasingly encouraging.

*****

The first body they find is buried by rubble by what once was a warehouse for fish. In better times the building had stored the daily catch packed in ice, ready for distribution. Of course, better times were long gone. Just like the building, and all the others in the area. In all of Arcadia Bay. Long gone like this man whose legs stick out from the debris, unmoving. 

Max presses a clammy hand against her forehead and closes her eyes. It doesn’t drive away the images of destruction around her, but maybe, if she squeezes her eyes really hard it will go away. Maybe she will re-open her eyes, and find herself in a timeline when her power is not a force of destruction, but a means to save everybody. 

When she feels a hand on her shoulder, Max opens her eyes to gaze at her silent driver. It’s difficult to decipher what is going on in Chloe right now. It’s easier when she is incandescent with rage, or bursting with a boundless energy to do stuff (or people), to do something. Anything. Like her palpable excitement when they found the Dark Room’s location (No, don’t go there Max, not the Dark Room, never the Dark Room, never again, make it stop.) She bites the cuticles of her thumb to end her train of thought, to rather think about Chloe’s expression again. Is this sympathy in her dark blue eyes? Indifference for having denied her wish to be the sacrifice for Max’s abuse of her power? It looks like pity, with a certain hint of disdain. Max is unable to tell. It might all be in her head right now. So many voices, whispering in her head, mocking, teasing, crying. Her fucked-up head full of all the different routes she had to take, all her foolish attempts to be Maxine Caulfield, time master, fixing everything. Instead she broke everything. Inside her head is nothing but noisy hell. It’s like living her nightmare again, just being aware of it this time.

She wants to scream, but she doesn’t. She wants to cling to Chloe, her anchor, but cannot stand the thought of rejection. She wants to cry for all those who were lost because of her, but doesn’t dare show that much weakness. She would never be able to stop crying again. Max doesn’t reach for the other girl even though everything in her is yelling that she should. She just looks at Chloe then turns her head. There’s the body of a woman buried underneath an ATM machine. Is this for real? For cereal? Max buries her face in both hands and murmurs “Please take me away from here…” to Chloe, barely able to press out the words from between numb lips. 

*****

Chloe is the more sensible of the two and stops the truck at the broken remains of a strip mall. She shakes her head when Max whimpers as she turns off the engine. Whoever thought she would ever be considered the practical one? “Do you want to stay here? I am just going to pick up some supplies for us. For the road.” She tries to smile encouragingly at Max who is radiating vulnerability and guilt. She hopes that’s what her smile expresses, encouragement. She wants that more than anything. She doesn’t want any of those flashes of resentment and bitterness that flicker through her mind to be present in her expression at all. How much of an asshole would she be if she did that to the girl who saved her over and over again, over everyone else in Arcadia Bay? (But it was against your will, Chloe. Ah fuck, as if I was unselfish enough to really want that. I am grateful I live. Fuck everything.)

A flicker of panic is in Max’ blue eyes which makes Chloe walk to the passenger side of her battered truck. She opens the door and helps the younger girl out. She takes her hand and never lets go as they roam through the ruins of destroyed stores. The only sound are birdsong and the crunch of broken glass and rubble under their feet. It’s creepy, like a horror movie, as if a bubble lay around Arcadia Bay, keeping the world out. No helicopters, no ambulances. Utter silence. Chloe hates horror movies. Fuck this shit. 

Chloe scores it big at the remains of a liquor store, salvaging several unbroken bottles of Jack Daniels from a box, plus plenty of cigarettes. She wants to light up immediately to calm her nerves, as much as she can do that without weed, but that would mean letting go of Max’s hand. Impossible.

Once the truck is loaded with the bare necessities, Chloe aimlessly takes the truck out of Arcadia Bay. There are spots where the road is so blocked that she has to take a detour. She lets out her residual anger with colorful cursing whenever that happens. The further away they move from the coastline, the more the impact of the tornado lessens but still, they see no one. At one point they pass a covered body, and this means someone else must be alive. They do not see anyone though, and that’s alright by Chloe. Wouldn’t do to get her hopes up that Joyce made it. There’s a tight pain in her chest at the thought of her mother, but she cannot linger on the thought. Max mumbled something that it’s possible there was an explosion at the Diner. Chloe is too much of a coward to face that thought or even try to go there. She must take care of Max. It’s her lifeline right now. Max has taken care of her (by denying me the first non-selfish decision I’ve made in years), and now she must take care of Max in turn.

By the time night falls, they haven’t really left Arcadia Bay far behind. Dinner consists of junk food washed down with cheap store-brand soda first, then the not so cheap Jack Daniels as they sit beneath a star-spangled clear sky in the bed of the truck. They drink plenty of the whiskey. It numbs the pain and wraps Chloe in a soft cocoon of oblivion, until Max is violently sick over the side of the truck. Chloe keeps hold of Max’s head in support, much like she did for Rachel back in the day, when they imbibed so much at American Rust that they were sick. Ah, the heady days of junkyard delinquency. There’s no danger of Max’s brown hair falling in her face as she pukes her guts out, but Chloe finds that caressing Max’s head calms herself down, and maybe even helps Max. She pulls the girl into her arms when the retching has stopped, and doesn’t let go. There are no tears. Just silence. 

*****

It feels like something has crawled in Max’s mouth and died in there, her tongue heavy, the taste foul. Her head is pounding and she immediately reaches two fingers to her nose, expecting the steady drip of blood flowing from her nose. Cause of death: brain aneurysm. There is no blood though, her fingers remain dry. Max blinks rapidly, as much as that hurts and spies Chloe just outside, brushing her teeth with toothpaste and toothbrush looted from the remains of a pharmacy. Slowly, memory returns and the brunette remembers the silence underneath a sky full of stars. A silence numbed by alcohol. The release provided was temporary, because the voices are back, howling in her head. Max Caulfield, murderer, selfish manipulator extraordinaire, abuser of powers that should never have been hers. All to score the girl who would very likely never love her back now. Max killed Chloe’s mother. She chews on her bottom lip, vaguely remembering being held, having her hair stroked, but she isn’t sure about it. It might not have happened. 

She wishes it had, though.

Chloe saunters back eventually, wordlessly handing over the toothpaste and the toothbrush. After the end of the world as they know it, maybe it’s the new normal to share. Max’s heart is heavy in her throat because Chloe has this lanky elegance in all her movements. This confident swagger, paired with her striking looks. She smirks at Max but before the brunette can say anything Chloe’s quick to say “Hey, Maxi-Pad, your breath smells gross from over here. Here’s a bottle of water, hop hop. We didn’t think to bring any fresh clothing, so we either hit the road to Seattle hard, or we find a way to buy shit. I’m hella broke, so…” She sounds so casual, as if nothing unusual had happened, as if the reason they have no clothing is not because they lost everything they had in Arcadia Bay. Max has her things in Seattle, at her parent’s. Chloe has nothing. Guilt is like a giant wad of cotton in her mouth, choking her.

“I have some money,” Max murmurs, then goes to brush her teeth, wash her mouth, escape the cool blue eyes that try to display nonchalance but show flickers of rage and grief instead. When she climbs back into the truck, she carefully states “I have about a hundred bucks, still left over from my birthday. That’s got to be enough for a night at a motel somewhere, right? I...I really don’t think I am ready for Seattle yet.” How can she face her parents, be re-united, celebrate her survival, when she took everything and everyone away from Chloe? 

“Alright, Max-a-million, or should I say, Max-a-hundred, we’ll take it slow and find some place to stay.” The blue-haired girl turns to Max with a pointing finger, and this time it’s definitely not just an assumption of Max that she is angry. “As soon as we get there, you fucking charge your phone and call your parents because they got to know you live. You hear that? Don’t let them freak out.” Chloe’s left hand bangs down on the dash of her truck, and she turns back to stare at the dirt road they’re parked at. 

The next hour is spent in silence, Max sitting slumped in her seat. If she could curl up into a fetal position she would. Chloe’s words bruised her all over. A couple of times she opens her mouth to say something, anything, to the girl she’s pretty sure she loves more than anything, but Max doesn’t know what to say. 

By early afternoon, Chloe stops and Max wordlessly hands her a couple bills so that Chloe can pick up some fast food for them. They haven’t really discussed it, but the last decision that Max made was to rip the photo and let it go, carried away on the winds of a storm. Since then Chloe has taken over, driving, looting, picking the routes and stops, making sure they eat. Of course, because it’s Chloe, the food she brings back contains vast amounts of greasy bacon. “Perfect for sopping up hangovers,” she informs Max before digging in with abandon. How Chloe feels, Max really wouldn’t be able to say. How can she act this normal, as if this were any other road trip?

Chloe lets out a huge burp at the end of the meal and merely grins at Max, but the grin fades when she notices that Max is staring at her with a face so pale that every freckle is standing out in dark relief. Max’s throat is tight as she squeezes out the words that have been on her mind all morning. “What would you have done? If our roles were reversed? Imagine you could have stopped the storm by sacrificing me, or moved on, with me. What would you have done?”

The blue-haired girl’s eyes widen but her lips press together into a thin line. Chloe doesn’t even try to say anything, just stares. Time’s ticking, and Max’s head feels like it’s about to cave in, pounding so hard, with every painful beat of her heart. Eventually Max chokes out “Would it be easier to make that decision if you imagined it wasn’t me to save, but Rachel Amber? Does that help?” 

Now there’s raw emotion in Chloe’s eyes, fireworks. She sees the stars in Chloe’s eyes, but they’re not for her. Never were. Max turns away, discarding burger wrappers and empty soda on the dirty floor of the truck, pressing her cheek against the cold glass of the window. She doesn’t allow herself to cry, she still can’t. She hears disapproving voices in her head. Is that Victoria she hears? ‘You gave us all up, made sure we died in this shitty town, just so you could save your precious, worthless punk who doesn’t even care about you like that. How does it feel to be such a fuck-up?’

She hears Chloe trying to speak to her, just saying “Max” in a way that the younger girl cannot decipher. Max doesn’t turn back to her, and eventually Chloe starts the truck again, and they drive off. The voices in Max’s head are too loud, the grief too raw, so sleep is impossible, for what good could lurk in her dreams? She shivers from raw panic at the thought of having to face the citizens of Arcadia Bay again, now that she really let them die.

*****

Chloe’s fingers are drumming painfully against the steering wheel of her truck while the other hand holds on, all white-knuckled. ‘I can’t believe she said that. Why the fuck would she bring up Rachel? What’s she got to do with anything?’ Her heart breaks all over again, at the memory of finding her body at the junkyard. She lost Rachel. Chloe mutters “Fuck,” under her breath then quickly darts a glance at Max who hasn’t looked at her since that post-lunch outburst. Way to spoil a good burger. In her head, Chloe is cursing non-stop because she doesn’t know how to fix this. She’s not good at handling emotions, and very aware of that. She’s great at bearing grudges, guilt-tripping and egotistical power trips. She’s not so good at soothing the obviously grieving heart of a girl who went through hell for her. She positively sucks at bearing grief and shouldering losses. 

Chloe can’t admit that she doesn’t know what she would have done in Max’s shoes, and cannot reveal that she admires the girl for her conviction to go through. She can’t tell her how much it hurts to have lost Joyce, may the rest of the shithole town burn. She obviously cannot tell her about how she is mourning Rachel, the girl she loved but who never reciprocated. The girl who fucked her literally and figuratively. Chloe can also not grab her and kiss her and show her physically how much she appreciates to be considered...worthy. No one has ever looked at Chloe and made her feel like she was the most special person in the universe. It’s only ever been Max, back when they were kids, and now. 

Eventually, she stops at a motel. It has a lit vacancies sign and doesn’t look like an utter dirthole, so Chloe makes the executive decision to stop here. Impulsively, she reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind the silent Max’s ear, which makes the younger girl whip around almost violently. Chloe keeps her hand on Max’s cheek, and almost sighs in relief when the girl leans into the touch. She’s not completely lost her with her inability to actually respond to her questions. “Shit, Max, you are so cold.” Chloe’s protective instincts are kicking in. Max feels like an icicle, and is still so deathly pale that Chloe starts to worry. The storm, the rain, and a night in her truck. She might be sick. “I’ll quickly get us a room, and then you hella get your ass into the shower.”

Chloe rushes off to arrange a room. The receptionist isn’t really paying any attention to her, because he’s busy staring at the small TV behind him. It’s like a trainwreck (or a tornado), but Chloe also can’t take her eyes away after she spies what’s on, a news report from Arcadia Bay. The reporter is standing in front of the ruined Two Whales, and there are indeed signs of an explosion. The windows all blew out, and it’s all a crumbled mess. It’s not the diner that draws Chloe’s attention though. In the background there’s a stretcher with a body bag, and whoever put the body in there did a fucking lousy job. It’s not completely zipped shut, and so a foot is hanging out. Chloe would recognize the scuffed pump anywhere. Why Joyce always insisted on working in shoes with a heel like that instead of more comfortable flats, her daughter doesn’t know. She remembers many nights that Joyce came home to slip out of the scuffed shoes, rubbing her feet and complaining. Not anymore though. There could be no doubt now.

The guy at the desk finally pays attention to Chloe and talks to her, but what he says, she can’t hear past the ringing in her ears. She numbly does a money exchange with him to get a key, barely mentioning that she’s from the Bay. That shuts him up fast as he gives her a look of pity, and a bit of a discount. Her mouth tastes like ashes, and her limbs are heavy as lead as Chloe walks to the car to get the few things they have. 

Max glances at Chloe once and visibly recoils. But Chloe functions. She sets their things down, then steers Max to the bathroom. “Have a hot shower, you’re hella cold. I’ll have a smoke outside, ‘kay?”

Outside, she makes quick work of a couple cigarettes which do absolutely nothing to calm her nerves. Chloe starts pacing and at one point punches the wall, the result being that her left hand now hurts as much as her heart. Nah, the hand actually hurts a lot less. 

When she finally heads back inside, Max is already under the sheets, looking small and fragile, briefly glancing at Chloe, then almost fearfully turning her eyes up to the ceiling. Chloe quickly changes, into a T-shirt that she had looted, washes her face, joins Max in bed. Turns the light off, tries to sleep, because sleep means not thinking of all they have lost. Max stirs a bit, one of her bare legs brushing against Chloe briefly in the queen size bed they’re sharing. Something flares up in Chloe then, the need to feel something but the anger and the grief that rule her right now. 

Max kissed her. Surely...there’s gotta be something, dare or not. Surely, she would understand.

“Max,” she breathes in the dark and moves to loom over the younger girl. There’s not a lot of light coming in from outside, just enough that she can see Max looking up at her. Chloe moves her body to press against the full length of Max and presses her lips on the other girl’s. There’s nothing gentle about this kiss and her tongue aggressively parts Max’s lips. 

Chloe is shifting one of her hands to Max’s hips, the other cups her face. A flash of triumph hits her brain when she feels Max reciprocating the kisses, hears the other girl whimpering and moaning needily. She bites down on Max’s bottom lip, rewarded with a sharp hiss and Max’s fingers tangling in blue hair. It’s sloppy, and rough and hot, and overrides the grief and anger she felt moments ago. 

Chloe gives herself up to this, follows all her impulses and touches Max everywhere. Her brain is not consciously aware that this maybe isn’t quite how Max imagines losing her virginity. 

Max shifts under her and Chloe bites down on her shoulder possessively, the other girl yelping in surprise. Still, Max moves, pulls back, and Chloe takes Max’s wrists, pinning them down hard with one hand, then dipping the other hand below between soft thighs to be greeted by silky wetness. 

*****

Her hands are tied, duct tape holding her wrists together painfully. Or are they? Max blinks rapidly, sees Chloe above her. It’s Chloe, it’s all good, she’d never hurt her. Or would she? Panic rises in her, drives away all her excitement about Chloe’s unexpected moves on her. Cold sweat forms on her forehead and suddenly she cannot see Chloe above her. She sees Jefferson, holding her wrists together, pinning her down, posing her, for the perfect composition, the perfect shot. Max can’t do this, she can’t. Her chest is so tight, she feels like she’s drowning in terror. She calls Chloe’s name, needing this to stop.

*****

There’s a red haze over everything, Chloe is singularly focused on controlling this aspect of her life, of taking pleasure in Max, and doesn’t respond to Max urgently calling her name. Chloe hotly breathes into Max’s ear. “Shush. Stay still. Don’t move,” she demands passionately. She is about to elaborate on all the pleasant things she wants to do to Max, when a single ray of light from a parking car outside falls on their bed, illuminating Max’s face which is a mask of terror. 

With more strength she would ever have thought possible from the smaller girl, Max shoves Chloe off her, with a scream, then leaves the bed, racing to the bathroom. Chloe can hear the sound of retching, and sobbing, and feels like the most terrible person in the world, unworthy scum of the earth.

*****

The porcelain of the toilet bowl feels cool against her heated cheeks. Max has puked her guts out until she thought she would choke to death on her vomit. Her eyes are bloodshot and tears are still leaking, burning salt in the corners of her eyes. She looks at her wrists, studying them to see the tell-tale signs of sticky duct tape that she was sure had restrained her. All she sees are bruises, finger-print size, marks that Chloe had held her like that. She shudders from revulsion, memories from the Dark Room all she can feel now. Those words, like Jefferson’s, angrily yelling at her to stay still. Was there the sound of a shutter? She gasps, scrambling up to defend herself.

It’s not a shutter. The click is the bathroom door opening, Chloe pale and antsy, peeking inside. “F-Fuck, Max, you don’t need to be scared of me,” the taller girl murmurs, though her own eyes widen at the sight of Max. The bruised wrists, and there’s a bite mark on Max’s right shoulder. “Sh-shit, Max, I’m a monster. I seriously did not mean to hurt you, fuck. I...I got carried away, and really, I would never want to do anything you weren’t cool with.” 

Max sighs and relaxes a bit, but her nerves are still thrumming with tension. She knows Chloe is not Jefferson, nor is she his tool. Just bad memories. She vaguely knows about triggers, heard of them before. Apparently Chloe is excellent at exposing all of hers. 

Chloe is still talking and pacing. “Damn, no one ever had to throw up because of me touching them. I’m such a shit. I...I seriously read the signs wrong, I thought we were okay. I mean, not okay okay, but both...like into each other, you know? Thought it would unwind us, to fuck, you know?” She’s really not making things any better, but it’s a very Chloe dialogue. Max rises to her feet, flushes the toilet, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

She takes a deep breath. “Chill, Chloe. You didn’t read any signs wrong. I’m into you, and I didn’t puke because of you. Sort of.” Max inhales deeply through her nose, then lets out her breath again. “Just surprised me, okay? I don’t think...I really don’t think I am good for anything of that sort right now. Or anything that involves... force.” Cold sweat again, and she hyperventilates just a bit. “Dark Room,” she squeezes out, and sees a flash of understanding, deep regret and sympathy in Chloe’s blue eyes. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks more gently than she is wont to do. She sounds more like wheelchair-bound alternative-Chloe, milder, wiser, more subdued than her usual self. (The Chloe I killed, instead of always having her live.) 

Max can’t shake her head hard enough. She can’t talk about the Dark Room. Not now. Maybe not ever. 

When Max returns to bed, Chloe stands there, almost helplessly, fidgeting with her long-fingered hands, flicking off some of the chipped blue nail-polish on her left index finger. “What do we do now, Max?” she asks in a small voice. 

Max closes her eyes and then murmurs “Now we will be each other’s friend and hold each other. I am so cold.”

And that’s what they do, limbs entangled, Chloe’s chin resting on top of Max’s head, as they listen to each other’s heartbeat and breaths, deep into the night, taking a small measure of comfort from this.


	2. What the Water Gave Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started writing this story in December, I had not anticipated that a) writing is frickin' hard when you haven't done it in years, b) adulting doesn't leave a lot of free time and c) an extended vacation would keep me from actually continuing this story for three months. Sucks to be me. I can't make any promises for the next two chapters, but I do know I will have to finish this story because I can't get it out of my head.
> 
> Big thanks to my friend Rach for beta'ing and to Team Rumblebee for LIS-VN and all its gay happiness, which made me ditch some gratuitous angst from this story.

Chloe taps off the ash of her third cigarette off the morning, leaning against the wall of the motel next to their room. She’s waiting for Max who is inside, on the phone with her parents. A fist is clenching Chloe’s heart at the tinge of happiness she hears in Max’s voice, muffled by the door to their room. She has every reason to be happy, with her parents probably delighted by the good news that their only daughter is still alive.

Chloe’s shoved her left hand into the pocket of her jacket, and it’s curled up tight around her pack of smokes, crumpling the edges of the cardboard. It is a surge of panic, anger and loneliness. What’s going to happen next?

The thought of Seattle doesn’t seem liberating to Chloe, not like her plans to go to L.A. with Rachel. Seattle equals to being fucking abandoned at a time she needed Max the most. Seattle symbolizes everything that went wrong in Chloe’s life five years ago until now.

The door opens, and Max walks out, with her bedhead mop of hair, and a faint smile. Talking to her parents relaxed her visibly though she has dark circles beneath her eyes. She stirred in her sleep a lot, wound around Chloe like a tight spring.

Chloe looks at her with burning eyes, the sting of tears always threatening, afraid of what Max will say next. Afraid that her friend will tell her that her parents are driving down to pick her up, adios, hasta la vista, Chloe. She flicks the stub of her cigarette away, pushes her right hand into the other pocket. “What’s up, Maxo, you ready to hit the road?” Nonchalant. Maybe slightly defensive. Bravado. So very false.

Max leans against her, slipping her arm around Chloe’s waist, and the gesture is enough to undo the taller girl. It’s like she pulls a string of the knotted mess that she is, unraveling her cleanly, if painfully. Chloe’s arm wraps around Max’s shoulder, touching heads with her. “Fuck, Max, I owe you an apology. An explanation. For last night.”

Bravado’s gone, replaced by insecurity and babbling honesty.

“I saw my mom. On TV. The dude at the front desk was watching the news.” She breathes shakily. “I am 100 percent sure it was her. Shit, it hurts.” Chloe isn’t crying because after finding Rachel, after the lighthouse, she’s out of tears, for now. They’ll come later. It hurts anyhow. Joyce died in a fucking diner, and she did not deserve that. She did not deserve her, the lousiest daughter one could have. “And fuck, I just wanted to feel good, just wanted to feel...something. I was fucking selfish again. Just being shitty me.”

Before she can say anything else, Max is already hugging her tightly. Max is shivering and holding on securely, stroking Chloe’s back, trying to give comfort even though she is so broken.

“You’re not shitty,” she says urgently. “I will always be there for you. Maybe not in that way...yet.” She squeezes tight, and Chloe’s heart jumps just a little bit. At the idea in general that despite everything, Max still continues to find her worth something. “I am so sorry about Joyce. I loved her so much,” Max says softly and genuinely. Guilt is lurking in Max’s eyes.

They hold each other in front of a shitty motel on a clear October day that has no right to be as sunny and beautiful as it is. Maybe Seattle won’t be so bad.

 

**********

Tension radiates off Chloe the closer they get to Seattle. Max is studying her, marveling at her sharp lines, that beautiful pissed-off face, as she once described it in her journal what feels like a lifetime ago. Has it really only been three days since then? So many timelines, so many jumps later, it’s insane to consider how much time really passed for Max. She puts a reassuring hand on Chloe’s shoulder and is rewarded with a tight smile, and a brief squeeze of her knee.

“Fucking hell, is the traffic always like this?” Chloe’s probably not the safest driver and there have been a couple moments that Max had to hold on for dear life at Chloe’s creative merging skills. Again she slams forward as Chloe shifts to the right lane, braking hard to avoid crashing into the Toyota in front of them, marveling at her friend’s colorful expletives and reckless driving.

“It’s not much further til we get home,” Max lightly says, and instantly regrets it. Chloe’s jaw is clenched and her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Max still has a home, the place she broke off all contact to Chloe, and Chloe has absolutely nothing but herself and her rusty truck. “I hope we can make it our home,” Max adds, squeezing her friend’s shoulder again. Friend. Romantic interest. Girlfriend. Whatever they are.

They talked a little during the drive, mostly about all the things they might possibly do. Trips to Mount Rainier and hiking, which made Chloe actually laugh and call her a dorky hippie girl. Boozing it up in Vancouver. Punk gigs.

Chloe suggested art galleries, photo exhibits, and Max smiled politely at the suggestion. Her messenger bag sat on the floor of the truck, untouched but for short rest stops when she had to grab her wallet. The bulky form of William Price’s Polaroid camera is visible through the fabric of the bag, but Max has yet to touch it. The thought of taking a photo, pressing the release ( _Always take the shot!_ ) causes her stomach to churn and her vision to go foggy. The voices start nagging at her, and the loudest is her own, that other, hateful Max. “ _Why are you with this inconsiderate fucker? It doesn’t even occur to her that after Jeffershit, taking photos might be the last thing on your mind. Does she ever think beyond herself?”_ Red crescents form on the inside of her palm, where her nails dig in hard enough to leave a mark. _“They match the bruises on your wrists, from where your precious punk grabbed you. Held you. Pinned you down. You are such a fucking punching bag, Maxine. What a victim.”_

The sound of a horn breaks Max from her reverie of this past conversation, of the hateful thoughts of her subconscious. “What a dick!” Chloe exclaims at the driver ahead of her. Time to head off the highway and get to their destination, before Chloe kills the both of them. _“Wouldn’t that be justice? You know it would!”_ She really hopes that this voice in her head will shut it anytime soon.

Shortly after that, Max manages to navigate Chloe to her parent’s house. Once the truck is parked, they just sit there for a while. It’s a miracle that the Caulfields aren’t storming out of the house, but then, they probably don’t expect them to arrive in Chloe’s ancient truck. Max looks at the house, trying to imagine what Chloe sees. That she is scared and tense is obvious. They hold hands, take deep breaths. “It’s going to be alright,” Max gently says and is surprised at herself, that it’s heartfelt. They are going to be with her family, and maybe that is the one place where they can both heal their wounds.

**********

Leaning her back against the house entrance, Chloe is watching the tearful reunion of the Caulfield family in their hall. With her arms crossed in front of her chest, she’s playing it casual but inside it feels as if she’s breaking into tiny pieces, shredded bits of loneliness. Vanessa Caulfield is particularly tearful, not letting go of her little girl for a good time. It’s understandable, really. Chloe doesn’t want to let her go ever again either, but it might not be up to her. Before her darkest thoughts can work her into a frenzy, Ryan is suddenly looming in front of her, and Chloe gets swept into a bear hug of Max’s tall dad. 

“Thanks for bringing Max home safely. Dang, I would not have recognized you if I didn’t know better, Chloe Price. You look…hm, awesome!” His voice is booming and warm, and some of Chloe’s anxiety dissolves, unfurls in the pit of her stomach. That’s how Max got all her hipster genes, right there. 

For five very long years, Max’s parents have always been “the enemy” in her head. The people who took her best friend away from her when she needed Max the most. Not the people who got an out from Arcadia Bay’s recession by getting a much better paying job in Seattle, in Ryan’s case. And apparently they did quite well, based on their house, upscale from their smaller one back in Arcadia. Definitely bigger than the Price house. The former Price house. The shambling ruins of a depressing life.

Returning the hug, Chloe quickly quips “I know, I look hella rad, and you’re cool too. I like the flannel look.” Ryan looks a bit like a lumberjack, with the physique to boot. She smirks a bit, then adds “No need to thank me, I’d do anything for Max.” She would, honestly. She is pretty sure she would. But then why didn’t she have an answer for Max yesterday, when she asked Chloe what she would have done in her shoes?

Vanessa steps away from her daughter, to get a good look at Chloe. “You really have our most heartfelt gratitude, Chloe.” She looks pale as if she hasn’t had a wink of sleep since they heard of the storm, and yet looks like blossoming life compared to Max. “Max told us you were coming up together, so we set up the guest room for you upstairs. You guys look so tired. You should rest. Or you could have a bite to eat first. Whatever you girls need.” There’s a certain amount of fake cheer, of insecurity how to make Chloe feel welcome.

Chloe’s face remains unchanged, or at least that’s what she’s hoping. She wants the Chloe Price smirk on her lips, even though her heart sinks. Of course, guest room. She’s just a friend after all. Max will likely be happy to have a rest away from her. Stay for a couple days, maybe, and then off to who knows where? It’s like a punch in the gut, the sudden knowledge that Chloe has absolutely nowhere to go in the world. No money, no clothing, just what she’s got on her body, her truck and her phone. Dispossessed and adrift. 

With a forced smile, Chloe opens her mouth to respond, but before she can even say anything, Max slides between her and Vanessa, leaning against Chloe warmly and comfortingly. Chloe’s arms slip around Max’s waist without conscious effort, without putting any thought into it. It’s just how they roll, such a natural fit. 

“The guest room won’t be necessary. Chloe stays with me. We’re together now.” Max says this lightly, her hands touching Chloe’s gently, as if it was no big deal at all. As if she didn’t casually come out to her parents within five minutes of their arrival. 

Vanessa doesn’t even look surprised, she merely blinks, then smiles and mentions something about an air mattress they can set up. Maybe she’s missing the point on purpose but there are no protests from either parent. It’s quite mind blowing to Chloe. 

Chloe feels choked up as she leans her chin against Max’s head, her hair tickling her skin, relishing the warmth of Max in her arms and in her heart.

**********

For the first time in days, Max feels almost normal. She doesn’t look normal but there is a certain sense of normalcy of being back in her family home. Freshly showered, her damp hair is tousled from towel-drying it, brown curls clinging to her neck. Studying herself in the mirror, Max sees a pale teenager with too many freckles and dark rings under her eyes, but her eyes are no longer red-rimmed. She’s dressed in her comfortable pajamas, looking almost child-like, small. How can you feel like a child and yet feel so old at the same time? The memories of the past week tug at her, ready to drag her down, but she shakes her head. “Not now,” she murmurs.

Tucking damp strands of hair behind her ears, Max heads to her room. When she walks in, her gaze immediately goes to Chloe who is prowling around like a caged tiger, restless and nervous. Right now she is engrossed with studying the photos Max has above her desk. The room is strangely stark and bare, as Max took most of her stuff to Blackwell. Compared to Chloe’s room it is immaculately clean, screaming good hipster girl, opposed to bad punk girl. No graffiti on the walls, no posters of naked chicks (no dudes either), just the photos, and a couple prints from some of Max’s favorite photographers. She gulps at the thought that once, she had considered hanging up a print of a Jefferson original. That’s truly sickening a thought. 

She wishes there were less photos on the wall. Are all photographers inherently arrogant, vain, maybe cruel? Surely there is a reason the selfie used to be Max’s thing, a road to vanity and egotism. She’s glad she stuffed the messenger bag under her bed, the Polaroid camera out of sight.

Chloe pokes at some of the photos. There are actually quite a few of Max and Chloe in younger years, fond memories of their childhood and friendship that Max never took down in their years of separation.

“You seriously had photos of me...of us, hanging on your wall, and yet you still never managed to call or write in five fucking years?” Chloe’s voice is on edge, Max’s abandonment of her still a sore wound, as she walks over towards the air mattress on the floor, nudges it with a bare foot and then starts prowling again restlessly. The blue-haired girl is wearing a sweatshirt and matching pants that she got from Vanessa, apparently pre-purchased before their arrival. “You’ll have to explain that one again sometime, Max,” Chloe adds, tension sharp as knives in her voice. 

Max sits on the edge of her bed, looking up at Chloe nervously. Instinctively, her left hand strays to her right arm in her introverted gesture of defense that was so typical for her interactions with Blackwell students. Before she met Chloe again and got brave. She starts gnawing on her bottom lip. Chloe deserves an explanation. Maybe it will actually make sense once she actually speaks about it. Max drops her hands into her lap and wrings them nervously, then takes a deep breath and speaks.

“Uh, you know, I was upset too when we left. I think I cried the first hour of the drive here and made us all miserable. You were so angry when I came to say goodbye. I thought you’d still be angry if I called you right away, so I decided to wait.”

Max has been staring at the floor, but when she looks up, Chloe’s dark blue gaze is fixed on her, so intensely and sharply that she gets goosebumps. She doesn’t break eye contact as she continues.

“A week passed. My classes started, and I was totally overwhelmed. Hello, introverted hipster girl from a backwater town in Oregon, welcome to Seattle and being ignored by everyone!” Max chokes out a laugh. “It was pretty miserable, and overwhelming. When I wasn’t in school, my parents dragged me around Seattle, to sell the move to me, and I got distracted. I know this all sounds shitty. It sounds shitty to me.” She wipes her damp palms on her pajama bottoms. “A month passed, then two, and every time I sat here at my desk, ready to call or write, I chickened out. Valuable advice: the longer you wait to call someone, the harder it gets. I screwed up, and was just so afraid of you hating me. I couldn’t stand it. So I let it go. I never forgot you. I just couldn’t deal with it.” Another deep breath. “Then when I came back to Arcadia, I was overwhelmed by school once again, and trying to figure out what I would actually say. Trying to be someone who I wasn’t, wanting to be changed and cool, not the shy wallflower that I was when I left. There you have it. The story of Max Caulfield, five years of being a giant chicken.”

She puts all honesty and feeling into her words, and waits for Chloe to yell at her, to once again not accept her words. But the other girl doesn’t yell. She looks at Max with strangely damp eyes and says “Eh, so we’re both fuck-ups.” She flops down on the air-mattress in a tangle of long limbs. “I know I was angry. The years only made that worse. I’ve been so fucking angry since my dad died. I was too angry to make the first step. I didn’t keep in touch either, did I?” she scoffs. 

Crawling forward on her knees across the air mattress, Chloe moves as close as she can to Max who is still seated on the bed. She touches Max’s knee hesitatingly but this light contact is enough for an explosion of butterflies in Max’s tummy. 

“Seriously, thank you. For earlier. For...standing up for me. For us. For everything.” Chloe’s rambling now, leaning a hand on each of Max’s knees, tilting her head to look straight up at Max. 

Max shushes Chloe by touching two fingers to her lips, feeling dizzy as she does so. What a weird relationship they have. Since they were re-united, Max has felt insanely drawn to Chloe, and there’s been this tension between them since the night of the pool. They had shared a peck of a kiss on a dare. They had touched and hugged, held hands, torn down walls. They had gone from zero to almost having sex the night before. 

“Don’t thank me, for anything. I meant it when I said that you are all that matters to me. You’re not my secret or anything of the kind. I…I love you, Chloe.”

It’s so easy to say it, with Chloe looking up at her like that. She leans forward, her hands reaching to cup Chloe’s face, and the taller girl leans up at the same time. Their lips meet, in another of those pecking kisses, speciality à la Maxine, but before Max can lean back, Chloe captures her lips again. It’s not the rough, sloppy kissing of last night. Instead it’s soft and gentle, deep and overwhelming, breathless and new, until neither of them can keep going for lack of oxygen. Their foreheads touch and Max’s fingers play with strands of blue hair, before Chloe pulls her off the bed, to stretch out on the air mattress with her.

Chloe smells clean, like the same shower gel and shampoo that Max used earlier, yet uniquely Chloe, with a hint of smoke on her skin. The taller girl gently touches Max’s face and arms, carefully, as if to make up for her reckless touching of the previous night. At one point they kiss more deeply, tongues touching, teeth clacking and Max buries her flushed face against Chloe’s neck, in a sudden flurry of nerves. “I’m sorry, I’m probably not good at this,” she mumbles. “I never...gah, I am awful.”

Max is deeply embarrassed now, but is taken by surprise when Chloe laughs and pulls back to look into Max’s eyes. “Max, I haven’t done this either.”

The brunette knits her brows in confusion. “But I thought you…” Max doesn’t find the words to continue and merely stares at Chloe.

“Yes, I’ve fucked, you know. Banged. Scratched an itch, did it for fun. Hell, that’s where I was coming from yesterday. But this…” Chloe’s eyes are bright and oh so blue as she looks at Max with incredulous wonder on her face. “I should feel shitty, and I am sure I will again, but right now…” She lets out a long breath, and then states “I’ve never loved a girl and been loved by her in turn. Do you know how incredible this feels to me right now?” There is a tinge of bitterness, of love lost, unreciprocated. Above all though, there’s this hint of wonder, of young love’s joy. “Don’t worry about starting fresh, because so do I. And I honestly, double-dog swear, I’ll try my best to never make you uncomfortable. We’ll go as slow or fast as you want, okay?” 

Max’s response is to find Chloe’s lips again. After all, only practice makes perfect. They kiss until Max feels like her whole body is on fire, every nerve-end aware of where Chloe’s hands have been, even separated by the fabric of the pajamas. 

“When did you get so brave?” Chloe murmurs into Max’s ear, holding her tightly. They’re burrowing underneath a blanket now, all warmth and tangled limbs, in between kisses. “My lion hearted girl.”

Max doesn’t feel brave in any form but even so she has to admit that the Max of early October wouldn’t have come out as brazenly as she did. Wouldn’t have stood up to prevent Chloe’s death so many times. Wouldn’t have told Jefferson…She locks down on those thoughts, as queasiness sets in immediately. Can’t think of him. Not brave enough for that. Not a lion hearted girl, but a rabbit heart instead.

“You make me brave, Chloe. I feel like a stronger person because of you.” ( _ More selfish, heartless and cruel. Go ask the united citizens of Arcadia Bay. _ ) Max digs her fingers into Chloe’s shoulders, then lets go of them to throw her arms around Chloe’s neck. Her next breath is shaky, tears threatening. “I am so sorry we couldn’t have this any other way.”

This night, it’s easier to sleep. Yes, Max has nightmares and hears voices. She’s in the Dark Room. Jefferson’s hateful whispers ruining photography forever chase her all night. Everyone from Blackwell, accusing her. Everyone she met in Arcadia Bay. Joyce is probably the worst. Everytime she jerks awake, there’s Chloe, guarding over her. Her hands and lips are soothing, and she makes Max feel safe. She coaxes Max to go back to sleep, for actual rest. Maybe it will get easier every night, until Max can forgive herself, at the end of her days. She can’t, she won’t regret being with Chloe.  

Couldn’t have had it any other way. 


End file.
